Is Anyone Too Smart to Be Scammed?

“Is anyone too smart to be scammed… or are we all just one bad moment away?”

We all like to think we'd spot a scam a mile off. But vulnerability has far less to do with intelligence than with timing, emotion, and context, and fraudsters know exactly how to exploit all three.

Welcome to the new season of What the Fraud, and to our brand-new host, investigative journalist Vicky Baker. This season, we're looking at the personal side of fraud: the human moments behind the headline numbers.

Our special guests this week are Nick Harris, Head of Financial Crime, and Iain Orpen, Head of Fraud Prevention at Capitec Bank, South Africa's largest retail bank. They explain why everyone has a vulnerability scammers can find, and why judging victims only makes the problem worse.

From a deliberate job scam run by journalist Joel Cedras and romance scams that play the long game, to deepfake calls and malware disguised as free streaming apps, this conversation explores how scams are becoming more personal and harder to spot in the moment.

We also examine why shame and re-victimization keep reporting rates low, how banks can spot the signals of a scam before money moves, and why industry-wide collaboration and tools like "Trusted Approver" are essential to protecting vulnerable customers.

Links:

Sumsub's Website: sumsub.com Sumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsub Sumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcom Sumsub on X: x.com/Sumsubcom Sumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcom Vicky Baker on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/vicky-baker-2426263 Nick Harris on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nicholas-harris-67403a24 Iain Orpen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/iain-orpen-65810b1b9 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.